An optically active α-substituted β-amino acid derivative is useful as a raw material and an intermediate for producing pharmaceutical bulk compounds, agricultural chemicals or biologically active substances. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses optically active α-substituted β-amino acid derivatives which are used as materials for production of antimicrobial agents. Also, Non Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose optically active α-substituted β-amino acid derivatives which are used as intermediates for production of cytotoxic depsipeptide cryptophycin.
Hydrolases have an ability to hydrolyze a substrate and in recent years, have been used in organic synthesis reaction for producing, for example, compounds which are used as active ingredients of pharmaceuticals or agricultural chemicals, or intermediates thereof. Particularly, hydrolases have been used in organic synthesis reaction for producing optically active compounds or intermediates thereof. For example, an enzyme having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1 and having an ability to hydrolyze a substrate has been known as a hydrolase (see e.g., Patent Document 2).
It is desirable that such industrially applicable hydrolases for producing optically active compounds or intermediates thereof, etc., have the following properties: ability to produce hydrolysis reaction product having high optical purity; ability to highly recognize the absolute configuration of the substrate; high stability against various reaction conditions such as temperature, pH, solvents or pressure; and so on. Particularly, if the reaction product has a high optical purity (i.e., the optical selectivity of the hydrolase is high), a purification step is not needed after the enzymatic reaction so that optically active compounds can be synthesized with favorable productivity.